I had a friend recently ask me why I hate George W. Bush so much, so I gave him these reasons. Maybe some of the more conservative types who check in here, will better understand why so many in this country are so fanatical about replacing Dubya, despite having a candidate, John Kerry, that we are lukewarm about.

Let’s start with the beginning of our discontent, the disputed election of 2000. From the beginning, Bush operatives seem miffed at why anyone would even try to recount votes in Florida. There are many reasons why Dems should have done that, all you have to do is look at Jeffrey Toobin book on the subject (just one of the many), but all I should need to say are these two words to Republicans, Jeb Gore.
Wait a minute, you must have misprinted that name, Scott. No, I wrote that for a purpose, as think of how upset Republicans would have been that at an extremely close voting count, with a lot of strange irregularities, was done in a state run by a governor, who’s the brother of Al Gore. So when I hear Republicans say “hey, buddy, get past the 2000 election”, I say FU! Many of the same people who espouse this mantra are the same one’s who claimed Ross Perot cost Papa Bush the Presidency in 1992, despite no polling, which proves this.

Despite his claims as a uniter, not a divider and the incredibly torn nation that we lived in after the election, no sense of reaching over to the other aisle existed at all by Dubya. Not one Democratic politician was installed into the new cabinet and the most moderate Republican member (Christie Todd Whitman) was evicted after a short period, because she didn’t fit the pro business/anti environmental thrust of the President. The only true bipartisan bill that Bush has passed was “No Child Left Behind”, which has not been fully funded by the administration and the Republican congress.

With this right-wing agenda being slammed down the throats of Democrats, by Bush and the Republican house, Dems, with just a few exceptions, backed off the President after 9/11 for over a year, as the nation was in no mood for conflict among leaders. Having this extemely unique opportunity of high approval and little opposition, Dubya could have passed through legislation that would have brought the country even closer together, but instead used this moment to push even more of a right-wing agenda, through Congress. If Bush would have been more moderate at this point, I completely believe there wouldn’t even be a Presidential race, as he would have won in a landslide, but it was more important to Bush’s brain and big contributors who run most of the administration’s policy to fulfill all of their desires.

There were legitimate reasons for both sides to believe what they did about Iraq, but there was no “Slamdunk” for either party. The biggest thing that kept me from believing we should invade was that I felt we needed more military and financial support from other countries, before trying to take over a nation with the population and internal complexities of Iraq. This view I argued vociferously with friends about, who were for us going in there, no UN support or not.

I know many conservatives that could care less about how other nations perceive us, but I cannot express how much I think they are wrong. It’s amazing to me that the people who feel this way are also the same people who are the biggest fans of unrestricted free trade. Guess what, we are interconnected with the rest of the world, as our economy is extremely reliant on other nations, so jingoistic chants of screw the country’s that aren’t with us militarily, just ain’t gonna cut it. Is a global test warranted every single time? No, but most of the time it is, no matter how much we are the new Roman Empire.

The final thing that incenses so many of us about the President is his anti-intellectualism. I’m not one who thinks Bush is an idiot, I just believe that his brain doesn’t work well with his mouth. Going along with this anti-intellectual attitude is his messiah-type complex, thinking that God is speaking through him. I’m agnostic, so maybe I not your typical American, but I was raised in a fairly strict Baptist Church home. Even though we had a lot of Footloose-type rules, I can never remember our Pastor pushing political rhetoric, as the separation of Church and State seemed to be a holy alliance. Since the 1980’s, this separation has continued to erode to the point that we have wound up with the current President, who mixes it with his politics, like how he used to mix coca-cola with his bourbon.

I’m sure there are other reasons that make many of the other posters here hate George W., but written above are the main answers why I have such a vitriolic attitude towards him. I consider myself a moderate Democratic and I had some respect for Papa Bush, but his son needs to be stopped. If you don’t want to take my word for it, why don’t you look at this article outlining how 36 papers that supported Bush in 2000 could not do it in 2004.